


Bird on the Wing

by Merfilly



Series: Dinah's DCU Free For All Table [4]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1349272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several scenes from a near-canon Dinah's life</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bird on the Wing

Dinah tried to focus past the words in her ears, past the sting of tears. This was a time of respect, a time for solemness, a time for control.

She had to be the brave daughter, seeing her father to his rest.

Her eyes wandered though. Her father was not in that box, nor was he among them. She felt that sharply, that he was gone, the anchor of her life.

It was finally time to walk back, and now Dinah had something to sharpen her focus.

Larry Lance had been retired most of Dinah's life, but the force still remembered him. They were the honor guard, all dressed in their best spit-and-polish uniforms, with Detective Gordon taking her mother's arm as her escort.

Dinah raised her chin, refusing to shed the tears, as she passed through the Finest Gotham offered.

* * *

Black Canary didn't like the constrictiveness of her jumpsuit all of a sudden. She twisted, reached up, pulled at the collar, and eventually let the zipper down a little. 

Batman looked just as uncomfortable, his cheeks flushed where they showed.

"I think that woman..."

"I had heard she used bio-toxins designed to render inhibitions useless," he told her.

"Bats...Have I ever mentioned just how hot that cape makes you?" she blurted out as she twisted to look full at him.

"Canary...I think we may have a problem," he groaned before reaching out and brushing her hair back from her shoulders.

"Maybe we should...go back...to your place...to fix it."

"Maybe."

* * *

She never hesitated at the sight of the flames. Her teammate was trapped by them, on the other side of the second floor they were working. He couldn't save himself, she had to be the one to save him. All she had to do was find the way.

A piercing sonic scream aimed at the floor between her and him dropped a large section of it down to the floor below, where the fire raged even more strongly. She leaped across the hole she'd made, licked by flames on either side, and landed near his changing form.

"J'onn, I'm with you...take my hands, and feel that I am here," she urged him, relieved when he did stumble to his feet in a mostly humanoid form. Getting him out would be tricky, but she was his anchor to fight the fear of the flame.

* * *

It so happened that Speedy and Black Canary converged on the tenement almost together, responding to the scanner's mention of a fire. They could see the smoke, smell it thickening in the air. The Canary hesitated to look at Speedy, thinking he shouldn't risk himself in there. The look on his face, one of fears confronted and old pain made her open her mouth.

Then they heard a baby shriek, and neither one thought after that. They went into the building, finding the children that were trapped, staying low so the smoke wouldn't get to them.

Black Canary would mark it as one of Speedy's finest moments. A few years later when she learned the story behind losing his father, she changed her opinion. It was his shining moment in a young hero's life.

* * *

She could not see out of one eye. Her jaw was probably broken, and she was tasting blood even when he hadn't hit her recently. The ropes around her wrists had long since rubbed and cut through skin, and the myriad of cuts he'd made all stung with the blood and sweat in them.

She couldn't remember being in this much pain ever. Not even when Kobra had made it up on the satellite had she been hurt this badly.

But when the torturer returned to ask her more questions, she defied him again. No amount of agony could break her will. She was her mother's child, the child of the JSA's legacy. If it was her time to go...she would do so with her honor intact.

* * *

It's when Ollie is home that they bother her the most. He's never learned to not see them, to not trace them with his gentle, featherlight touches. The kisses along the worst of them, at her wrists where the ropes burned and cut inward, might be the thing that most tempts her to scream in rage for it ever happened, to shove him away for being so careful, for making him see her as _fragile_.

So even when she goes back to mom's costume, she wears the heavy bangles at her wrists. She makes sure the lines of the costume never betray the scars of her stupidity.

She just doesn't want the world to see them and treat her the way Ollie does.

* * *

She couldn't tell how long she'd sat in the window seat. The irony that Seattle was under sunny skies was not lost on her, as the tears continued to refresh themselves. She stared out the window, hearing the doctor's voice over and over.

In a way, maybe this was just, fitting. It was punishment for her failure with the League, for Ollie's failure. They would not have children, because they had betrayed who and what they were in the matter around Light.

It didn't make it any easier to tell her lover, though. He already saw the attack on her when they moved here as punishment enough for their sins.

Only briefly did she wonder that if this was their price, just what would happen to the three surviving yes-sayers? And what would happen to Hal for standing by them?

* * *

Ollie never had meant to hurt her. The woman was every thing he thought he had wanted in a life partner. He knew from the minute she actually said hello without an edge that this would be the one.

He never reckoned on not being able to walk away from Hal, though.

Dinah seemed perfectly unaware of the fishing trips that weren't quite just about the fish. She never said a complaint when Hal would haul him off for an extended mission somewhere else. If the gossip of Hal and Ollie got back to her in any way, she seemed to let it go as a joke and wandering imaginations. He never had seen the pain building in her, that said she knew the truth, that he was not hers alone.

It took Hal moving out of his life for Ollie to realize just how deep-seated a problem it really had been. His eyes strayed, his mind wandered to other women even. He knew he was just trying to replace Hal, to find that strong control Hal had offered him in their relationship.

He never thought about asking Dinah to be that strong for him. Never considered that maybe, instead of coddling her and putting her on pedestals she didn't want, that she might just be able to give him everything he had wanted.

The slap in the face that Marianne had been to Dinah was only the last piece of abuse she'd been willing to take. 

It wasn't until years later, when his Pretty Bird gave him a chance he knew good and damn well he did not deserve, that he realized just how much he had slighted her in not giving her the chance to fill all his needs.

He swore he'd never be that stupid again, and let his dynamic woman know it every chance he could.

* * *

Dinah had been taught by life that the worst pains didn't leave marks. Her father's death had crushed a piece of her, the JSA vanishing had taken another one. Her mother's opposition to her desires was yet another wound without a scar.

Ollie's treatment of Roy had not wounded her directly, but later, when his betrayals of her came home, she realized it had been a warning sign of things to come. His death took its pound of psychic flesh, and his return managed to make that one hurt more.

She looked in the mirror, and she wished for some way to put balm on the scars that would not show.

* * *

**Crack!**

One hard slap began the painful process of her coming around.

 **Crack!**

The second made her taste blood, a taste that was too familiar to a woman who had a bad history of getting in way over her head.

The third made her open her eyes, just enough, to prove to her captors she was really conscious.

She listened to their prattle, the usual villain monologuing over their own superiority. It served as a vague distraction from the cold, gnawing panic.

She was bound.

In rope. Arms pulled up and slightly behind her.

There was slack though, and the knots felt like the wrong kind to be effective.

She looked at her captors, a smile of defiance rising to her lips, a moment before she got both ropes actually in her hands to use for leverage on a kick.

Black Canary could be caught, but she would never allow herself to be held again, she vowed, as she proceeded to handle the three captors from her bound position quite handily.

She'd have to remember to thank Diana for those lessons later.

* * *

Roy glared at Dinah fiercely. "This is not helping."

Dinah just laughed, shook her head, and patted his cheek.

"A lot of children have invisible friends, Boy-o."

"You're not supposed to encourage this!" he exploded, just as Lian went sailing up into the air, tossed by strong, very invisible arms.

"Better J'onn than some made up figment that she'd one day lose, Boy-o." Dinah watched, happy she'd introduced J'onn to her god-daughter at last. Because the Martian was definitely enjoying the sound of her laughter.

Even Roy had to admit that he'd never heard of the Martian being anywhere near that relaxed.

* * *

Dinah gave him one more reason after another on why it was a bad time. Pieter listened, told her to try and come as soon as possible.

A full month after the incident, and she was still dodging him. He decided it was time for drastic measures, if he was going to get Dinah Lance where he wanted her, over her procrastinating excuses.

"This is Dr. Midnite to Green Lantern...I need you to please tell Black Canary to report to me."

"Why?" the startled man asked, because he knew there had been feelings simmering there.

"She's dodging her physical."

"I'll send Flash to get her."

Pieter smiled. Sometimes Dinah's family connections worked against her.

* * *

"J'onn, I heard about the other day." Dinah sat opposite her friend with a serious face. "Barda was quite concerned, and with reason."

"I had a momentary slip of my thoughts," J'onn assured her.

"J'onn, you were ignoring that her mega rod and disks had been stolen, until she informed you your cookies were in the trunk of the car too."

"I was not ignoring those facts necessarily."

"J'onn."

"Dinah."

They stared at each other for a very long minute, and then J'onn sighed.

"I may have a problem."

"Good...first step to beating an addiction is admitting it," Dinah said.

* * *

//Not again.// Black Canary stared at where the Clock Tower had once stood, ashes and debris still falling, coming down to darken Oracle's brilliant red hair, obscuring the color of Huntress's costume.

She could not believe that yet another home she'd grown accustomed to had been destroyed. Staring at the ruins of the Clock Tower was too much like watching the Sherwood Florist finish burning to the ground.

She looked down at Oracle again, who was sad...but seemed to have a plan. The Canary could only hope that one day she would not have to look at another wreckage for following her into the future she saw.


End file.
